ON THE CONCEPT OF TIME - Part 1 of 2

Today’s commentary is somewhat personnel, so pardon the number of “I’s” which you will see.

I was brought up a Christian, so I always believed in God. For me, it was tough to be “born again” (John 3:7) because I was already born, born again, I thought. I have always been a rigid believer in God, but not the might of God, as the case may be. My belief was as an unquestioning child, and that is not bad; or so said Jesus, “Except you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Mat 18:3).

As such, none of us need not understand God but simply that He is real and has the Power to change anything that He has made.

Conversion in that passage has great significance. The Greek verb from which it comes means “strengthened” (Strong 2006), meaning that I was once weak in my belief (i.e., with no faith). Believing in God is one thing but trusting Him for eternal life was only an abstract idea. In my mind, God existed but I was master of my own domain. Hence, I believed in two gods: the real God and me as his special assistant who helped Him with me. That type of belief is arrogant.

Little children require assistance in all things they do. Most generally when the huge events come about, children get in the way. Being as a little child is succumbing to the wiser elder. For full grown children, I had not succumbed to Father God; I had gotten in His way because I thought I already knew it all. What I failed to understand was that I was not even a weak God; and that I had no part in saving myself; that it is the real God who changes things.

Conversion (strengthening) requires what? Power. Little children are weak in both mind and body. Children usually depend on those mightier than themselves. For me, I believed in God but that He was a “weakling” for it was me who controlled my destiny and that I would submit to God whenever I determined. I would turn to God for salvation at the last moment, so it was me that I was depending upon.  Time belonged to me and God was beyond time. As it turned out, perhaps that is true!

 

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa 55:8-9)

 

What I thought was not significant other than submission to God for His will to be done. God’s ways are not dependent on time. Salvation was always by Jesus even in the beginning… even before the foundation of the world (Ephes 1:4). God pre-selected Adam’s kind to be His children; He made man and put unto him part of Himself, some of His phantom-like Image (Gen 1:27).

Mankind always brings time into any discussion. Up until recently, even power was defined as time, but no longer; scientists now see power as independent of time.

In science things (particles) can take a quantum leap from one state to another. The notion of “states” is indeed scientific, but theological as well. God strengthening anyone is Him changing the states from weak to strong.

First off, what are “states”? In science, "states" primarily refer to matter; the different forms matter can take, usually solid, liquid, and gas, with plasma being a fourth natural state, among others.

In theology, there exists another state. Christians remain in the same physical and visible form, but within the state of being changes. Rather than me being the strength within me, God strengthened me. Something inwardly changed. I remained an animal, but God tamed the beast within me. I did not become a coward or a weakling, but forcefully one of those obnoxious (sic) Christians that credit God in all things! God took a child of little faith and gave me great faith, not of myself but from Him, or so it says:

 

"We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us” (Cor 4:7)… "Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,' says the LORD Almighty” (Zach 4:6)

 

As such, humans are the “clay”; albeit we have life as defined by ourselves. We are “clay” to God unless He breathes life unto us as in the beginning. Any ability to change our states are not within any of us because the human body is a closed system. So, to change states scientifically, there must be power that is added to the boundary that our flesh defines. God adds the Power when strengthening us to change a non-Christian into a bold and forceful Christian.

Not by coincidence, the Hebrew letter tav — the cross —crosses the boundary condition or our flesh, representing completion in crossing over. That makes the Christian a Hebrew inwardly (Rom 2:29) because “Hebrew” means to cross-over some thing. Hebrew would be the change in states from the flesh to the spiritual waters (mem).

Conversion, from the key verse, is from little children to forceful Christians. Little children are pliable and weak while adults are firm in all their ways, even obstinate. As a youth, I stood up for God without even knowing Him! Now I came to know God because He has given me great strength to act on His behalf.

How much time did Jesus say it took to be strengthened? He never mentioned time at all. God is not limited by time and our clock — the Sun. If there were no minds to perceive it, time would go on as if it is non-existent. Just as a sound wave to be heard requires a receiver, so it is with time. Time is therefore for mankind (as well as the beasts).

In due time, Christians will be changed from one state to another, as Paul wrote:

Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed; In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye at the last trump for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed; for this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. (1 Cor 15:51-53)

 

The first thing that must change, according to Jesus, is our minds. Like a garden, God plants a seed in the minds of sinners, and they begin to follow the Way of God, ostensibly to the harvest of which Paul wrote above.

The first change is the state of the mind. However, the last state is from corruptibility to incorruptibility; from physically dead to alive; from time to timelessness. Hence, you might now understand why it is that for mankind, everybody will go to another realm wherein time does not exist. Both Hell and Paradise exist in another realm that is eternal… where time does not exist.

How fast does God change the dead in Christ?  In a “moment”, “atom” in the Greek. A “moment”, like the atom can be cut no further. “Atom” means not cutable. Hence a moment is the smallest increment that can be perceived — now it is… now it is not; or visa-versa.

A twinkling is a measurement of time if the eye is considered. Normal twinkling for people lasts at the minimum 0.1 second. However theologically, twinkling is even beyond that — in a “moment” that cannot be measured by time.

The fastest stars do not twinkle but appear to twinkle as fast as 1000 times a second. However, the twinkling of a star is how people of this world perceive time. It is power they see with worldly interference.

The state of Christians from dead to alive will occur beyond time. Scientifically, we will be thrust from one realm to another without regard to time. One second dead bodies will be here and the next second, living bodies will be in Paradise in the realm of heaven. I can only use “seconds” to describe the instant that the Power of God changes the states of Christians.

The work of God does not depend on our thoughts but on His, for His Thoughts are not our thoughts, nor His Ways our ways, according to God (Isa 45:8).

How quick are the divine Thoughts of God? Beyond time — immeasurable, as is quantum mechanics; or to put it in scientific terms… faster than the speed of light. “Time” in science is measured by the speed of light, but a moment is even quicker than that!

Adam and Eve were once in Paradise but that was changed. First off, note that they were no longer glorious and that their mortality was not suitable to the Garden of the Lord, which was ostensibly in the realm of heaven. As such, God because of grace, put them in a suitable place for their sinful state. He removed them from beyond time into time from heaven to material earth, not places but much different realms. Their state changed from immortal to mortality. As it turned out immortality is immeasurable, but mortality is measured by the concept of time.

How quickly did the states of Adam and his wife occur?

So (God) drove out the man; and He placed at the east of the Garden of Eden Cherubims and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the Tree of Life. (Gen 3:24)

 

First note that “east” was not just a direction in ancient times. It meant “before time” or even “beyond time” as well since the Sun comes up in the east.

The Earth’s Sun would establish time for them. Elsewhere, things were beyond time because time exists only in the solar system in which we live. The Hebrew word for “east” is qedem (קֶדֶם), with one meaning “aforetime” (Strong 2006).

The letter qof in qedem means beyond observable reality (CoPilot). The second letter dalet to which the qof points means entry into spacetime and matter (ibid). Lastly, the letter mem means motion within a material realm (ibid). If so, then Adam and his kind were once in a heavenly Paradise without either time or observable matter into time and observable material things.

(Note that does not mean that Adam’s kind were not material beings while in the Garden but material that was not observable by common men. It may be that the two did not change but only their states of being. They may have been in the same place but become blind to invisible things.) Sacred literature contests to that:

 

Then Adam cried and said, "O God, when we lived in the garden, and our hearts were lifted up, we saw the angels that sang praises in heaven, but now we can't see like we used to; no, when we entered the cave, all creation became hidden from us."

Then God the Lord said to Adam, "When you were under subjection to Me, you had a bright nature within you, and for that reason could you see things far away. But after your transgression your bright nature was withdrawn from you; and it was not left to you to see things far away, but only near at hand; after the ability of the flesh; for it is brutish."

When Adam and Eve had heard these words from God, they went their way; praising and worshipping Him with a sorrowful heart.

And God ceased to commune with them. (1 A & E 8:1-4)

 

If that is true, then Adam was not driven out of anywhere; it is just that both he and the woman could no longer see what once was observable. How long did it take for the two to change from one state to another? No time. They would have been blinded in a moment… in the twinkling of the eye. One moment they could see all things, and immediately they could only see material things observable to their new kind that Adam called “Eve.”

God did not just drive them out of His sight, or as it is written above, “God ceased to commune with them.” He would have no longer allowed them to see divine things, so they were blind to the spiritual world of God.

If He did not drive them out, what was it? Garas in the Hebrew (גָּרַשׁ). God “thrust” them out, not from their places, but from a higher state to a lower.

Once the Spirit of God had dominion, now the flesh was dominant. They could only see material things moving in time and no longer had the ability to see beyond.

“Thrust” is when a system suddenly expels mass. Thrust is because of Power measured in time, but God would have done so in a moment to defy time. Their bodies would have not been thrust anywhere but as Eve admitted, it was their bright natures. No longer Adam’s kind, with sin, they became Eve’s kind, Is in the Hebrew, from Issa (woman). “Is” are common men sometimes called “Enos.”

In one moment, Adam’s was changed unto Enos’s kind. Their locations did not change but their states. Glorious Adam would have become a lower state of man — perhaps like the “creeping thing” (Gen 1:26) over which he was once dominant. The creeping thing would have not creeped physically but would have been of a lower state of man without God in it.

Once Adam was elected before time, but in time, Enos kind would have been the elect for God to preserve.

Since the meaning of “east” has been conveyed, now apply it to the beginning.

First off, the “beginning” was before time, so before time both the heaven and earth were created. Many scientists now agree with both the intelligent creation and the absence of time involved. In other words, once the state of everything was God, and in a moment… in the twinkling of the eye, all things God made were in existence. The first verse of the Bible is not time related but a rank — the thing that God did in that one moment.

I always defended the six-day creation because that was what I was always taught. That compromised God and made Him feeble. Now, I think I see it correctly. Of course I can be wrong, but “Almighty God” is not just a saying, but His Power — Saday Elohim.

(To be continued with His Might.)